Potential of Remote Ethnography in the Time of COVID-19

Possibilities and Challenges of Analysis through Step-by-step Visual Information Sharing

抄録

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis in conducting conventional cultural anthropological research. However, it has also provided an opportunity to consider conducting research when anthropologists are not present on the field. This study examines the potential of remote ethnography, with the use of photography, through an experiment, wherein visual data from the field are shared progressively between two members. In this approach, fieldworkers separate the visual information in the photographs from the contextual information, and share the photographs with other researchers step-by-step. This approach created scope for "overinterpretation." Overinterpretations generated by researchers who did not conduct fieldwork may provide new insights and suggestions for those who conducted fieldwork.